Zero--Cyberpunk in Grade School With Highland Community School

A cute, little girl strolls by wearing black jeans, a black dress coat and mirror shades. There's a big computer desktop projected onto the screen above her. In a large, red window in the middle of it that says "Ignorance Is Patriotic." Kids are milling about in costume in a large school gymnasium that's being used as a theatre. This is the day of the final dress rehearsal for Zero--a cyberpunk stage play for little kids at the Highland Community School. The show's mastermind Barry Weber invited me here.

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I suppose seeing kids dressed-up in eclectic, cyberpunk-inspired costumes should make someone like me from Generation-X feel kind of old. I don't. I am enjoying the sweet surrealism of it all--true to the patchwork eclecticism of the cyberpunk genre, we have a multiethnic cast in a show that has allowed for creative input by all of the little actors.

The students range in age from 9-12. (So none of them had been born yet when I first read Gibson's Neuromancer. But I DON'T feel old here. really.)

Weber presented the project to the kids at the beginning of January and they've been working on it ever since. As things begin to get rolling, I distinctly hear the score to John Carpenter's Escape From New York and I start to feel at home. Things begin to get underway. The aesthetic feels right for '90s retro feel. A couple of pseudo-chrome-colored CRT monitors rest in front of old keyboards on a black stage. The show begins on a video projection of a newscast that establishes the premise.

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The play is set in a dystopian future. A president for life has outlawed math. No one is to engage in it. There is, however, a small autonomous zone in which math is actually done--Minus World. The story, which has many of the standard conventions of a cyberpunk story, features a known outlaw who calls himself Archimedes being sent into Minus World to try to stop the renegade intellectuals living there, Again--this is a grade school play.

In over 10 years of theater, I have seen quite a few interesting shows off the beaten path. Seeing a group of 9 to 12-year-olds perform a very sophisticated, high concept science fiction cyberpunk stage drama has to be one of the most offbeat things I've ever seen. If you're in the right frame of mind for it, this is a lot of fun. I realize that's probably weird considering it's--y'know--a bunch of kids.

Squint your eyes and tilt your head back and you're seeing 9 to 12-year-olds playing on stage and you can almost picture them performing something much more traditional for kids that age in a school play. Let yourself sink into the weird reality of the play and it's actually really cool.

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Characters found in Minus World are based on actual ancient mathematicians. It's not hard to imagine renegade intellectuals in a world where math is illegal taking on the identities of ancient mathematicians. We find a variety of different characters carefully researched by the students based on people like Euclid, Pythagoras and so on. Gradually we are introduced to them all and their achievements until finally we reach the weapon that is Zero.

The dialogue involving the mathematical concept of zero is actually quite clever and poetic. (Nothing is everything.) As the little actors aren't as experienced onstage, some of it will doubtlessly get lost in performance. (It is sometimes difficult to hear them.) It's a remarkable achievement for all involved. Judging from the dress rehearsal, it's a really enjoyable fusion education and entertainment--both for those kids onstage and those of us in the audience.

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ZERO: a 45-minute sci-fi drama has two performances: March 26th and 28th. Both shows are at 6:30 pm. The show takes place at Highland Community School Auditorium on 1706 West Highland Avenue. For more information about Highland, visit them online.

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